Titled as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the concept of “background music”—the common Japanese abbreviation for the specific kind of disposable compositions found in advertising or Muzak—Yellow Magic Orchestra’s 1981 album BGM marked a conceptual pivot for the group. The aesthetic anchors of what would become known as “techno-pop” were more firmly coalescing within YMO’s sound: On BGM, the outfit’s flat, cleanly arranged electronic sounds are meticulously sequenced and rendered in a glistening hypermodern sheen, and adorned with rote, alienated lyrics that invoke the emotional distances felt within life in a rapidly accelerating modern world. Inspired by European groups like Telex, Kraftwerk, and Ultravox, YMO pushed the contemporary feel of this new strain of grid-driven pop even further, making BGM the quintessential soundtrack to Japan’s ascending technological supremacy. Like Rumours or Abbey Road, the album’s electricity was sparked in part by intra-band tensions and creative one-upmanship, with the group’s star members Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono barely on speaking terms, and Sakamoto largely absent during the sessions—a clash of egos that would continue throughout their respective careers. Perhaps due to this tension, the pieces by third member Yukihiro Takahashi’s shine the brightest, with the triumphant “Cue” remaining one of his most iconic songs. “Music Plans,” meanwhile, finds Sakamoto at his most searing and untethered, as he slathers taut electro with goading lyrics processed through heaps of vocoder and delay. BGM makes clear and intentional use of Japanese tech’s cutting edge, including the historic first appearance of the TR-808 drum machine—the device whose sub-bass would come to define modern music. The album also features a rare co-writing credit from the most unsung architect of the group’s sound: The synthesizer programmer Hideki Matsutake, whose futurist ambient composition “Loom”—dabbled with Prophet-5 clouds and an ever-rising Shepard-Risset glissando—closes the album, exemplifying Japan’s decade of “kankyō ongaku” ambience that was just onsetting.